Monday, May 05, 2003

An idiotic media event:

The President staged a macho media event a couple of days ago with a tailhook landing and speech aboard the carrier USS Lincoln. He hopes this will set him up for an election win in 2004. Senator Robert Byrd of Virginia said “President Bush’s address to the American people announcing combat victory in Iraq deserved to be marked with solemnity, not extravagance; with gratitude to God, not self-congratulatory gestures, American blood has been shed on foreign soil in defense of the president’s policies. This is not some made-for-TV backdrop for a campaign commercial.” (although that is what it will probably end up as).

“As I watched the president’s fighter jet swoop down onto the deck of the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln, I could not help but contrast the reported simple dignity of President Lincoln at Gettysburg with the flamboyant showmanship of President Bush aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.”

[Posted on the CNN website ]

But, George, al-Qaeda is said to be reconstituting itself, and Osama bin Laden remains at large. Iraq has been overwhelmed and overrun, but Baathists, outlaws, and meddlers persist, and Saddam Hussein has eluded all efforts to kill or capture him. We have gained a cauldron of seething expectations, discontent and hatred with our presence. It begins to look as though we may suffer the same fate as Occupier as the Israelis in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories – picked off by small groups a few at a time until the accumulated total is too much for an impatient homeland with no historical memory.

Because I disagree so much with everything he’s done, I’m looking for anything that foretells his comeuppance, defeat and ultimate ruin.